Organized Labor

Employee Free Choice Act to Protect Workers’ Right to Organize

A majority of non-union workers, 57 million of them, say they would like to join a union. And labor unions, who delivered millions of votes that elected the new democratically controlled Congress, will be flexing their political muscle to ensure that those workers trying to organize are protected from intimidation and harassment by employers.

Employee Free Choice Act to Protect Workers’ Right to Organize

A majority of non-union workers, 57 million of them, say they would like to join a union. And labor unions, who delivered millions of votes that elected the new democratically controlled Congress, will be flexing their political muscle to ensure that those workers trying to organize are protected from intimidation and harassment by employers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she expects Congress will move in early 2007 toward passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The legislation which has both Republican as well as Democratic sponsors, would allow workers to form unions by simply signing a card or petition, increases penalties on employers who violate labor laws, and allow for arbitration to settle first contract disputes.

Union activists say the right of workers to organize in unions is widely recognized in most democracies around the world. But they say when workers in the United States try to organize; they often face aggressive campaigning by employers to prevent the formation of a union. Stewart Acuff, organizing director of the AFL-CIO, said that thousands of workers are fired each year for trying to form a union.

The number of employer unfair labor practices has soared since the 1950s and 1960s. Studies document increases of 600 percent to 800 percent. In 1998, roughly 24,000 employees won compensation for being fired or punished illegally for union activity, up from less than 1,000 in the 1950s and about 6,000 in 1969. During worker campaigns to form a union, 25 percent of all employers illegally fire at least one employee for union activity, according to a recent study.

“Ensuring workers rights to organize is a very important part of the reason we do the political work we do,” said Karen Ackerman, political director of the AFL-CIO.

Current National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) remedies are not sufficient to deter such abuses or to erase their impact on employee free choice.

The NLRA’s current penalties against illegal firing of union supporters are so minimal that employers treat them as a minor cost of doing business, according to the AFL-CIO. Unlike other federal statutes prohibiting unfair treatment of workers by their employers, the NLRA does not provide compensatory or punitive damages or damages for pain and suffering for violations of NLRA rights. Employers who illegally fire workers for union activity are only required to pay back wages—minus what the worker earned in the meantime.

Because of the complex process for litigating cases before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the courts, an employer that illegally fires a worker for union activity can typically avoid for nearly three years an enforceable order to pay back wages and offering the worker reinstatement. In the interim, the firing serves as a chilling lesson to the employee’s co-workers that they too could lose their livelihoods if they support the union.

The Employee Free Choice Act increases penalties for violating employees’ rights. Monetary penalties must be strong enough to change employer behavior so NLRA violations are not simply treated as a minor cost of doing business, say the legislation’s advocates. The Employee Free Choice Act would increase the damages to three times the amount of back pay an employer must pay to an employee who is illegally discharged or otherwise forced to suffer loss of pay or benefits on account of union activity during an organizing effort or during the period when employees are seeking a first contract. To further deter illegal discharges and other unlawful conduct, the Employee Free Choice Act also provides for civil monetary fines of up to $20,000 for discharges and other significant violations of employee rights that occur during organizing efforts or during the period when employees are seeking to negotiate a first contract.

“It’s as fair as an absentee ballot,” said Mike Hardeman, Political Director for Sign and Display Local 510. “No one can tamper with it. Workers are free of harassment and intimidation and they are not being pressured by employer, or some Ivy League CEO about how to vote.”

Labor activists believe they can get the Employee Free Choice Act through Congress soon if they make a determined effort. But they said it might not be signed into law under the current administration.

“Passing the Employee Free Choice Act at this moment in Congress is very important to us,” said Ackerman, who acknowledged it might take election of a Democrat as president to finish the job. “We will keep mobilizing and organizing until it is signed into law.”